Parasitic polychaetes in the Early Cretaceous Hydrocarbon seep-restricted brachiopod Peregrinella Multicarinata

Abstract

Hydrothermal vents and methane seeps sustain unique ecosystems with a highly adapted fauna that largely thrives on chemotrophic endosymbionts. This large biomass attracts not only predators but also parasitic taxa like the recently reported oophagous bivalve Acesta bullisis Vokes, 1963 that lives permanently attached to a vestimentiferan tube worm (Järnegren et al., 2005). Here I report large brachiopods of the Early Cretaceous seep-restricted genus Peregrinella Oehlert, in Fischer, 1887 that were infested by polychaete tubes inside their shells during their lifetime.